Shredded Brussels Sprouts Salad

Now that we are firmly in resolution territory….brussels sprouts and kale for everybody!

Amirite? Or amirite? Great!

As already discussed, I am one of those suckers that looks forward to January 1st for that giant, metaphorical reset button. In life, in health, in food.

I mentally press it with all my might the second I pop out of bed New Year’s Day and get excited to start eating super cleanly again, as though I needed permission to do so.

This salad is decidedly virtuous. I get a straight up health high knowing how good it probably is for me. Between the sprouts, the ever true health beacon that is kale, and the endless pops of anti-oxidants as I chew down on those pomegranate seeds. Oh MAN! I am so good at being healthy!

Please don’t hate me when I post so many salads over the next coming weeks. I’ll come to my senses eventually and balance all this clean eating shit out with some sort of sinful something.

I promise. <3

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Shredded Brussels Sprout Salad

Ingredients:

Dressing:

3 tablespoons of olive oil

1 tablespoon of sherry vinegar

2 teaspoons of maple syrup

squirt of mustard

salt and pepper to taste

Salad:

1 pound brussels sprouts

½ bunch of kale

½ cup of toasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped

seeds of 1 pomegranate

¼ cup of shredded parmesan

Directions:

Whisk olive oil, vinegar, syrup, mustard, salt and pepper together until combined. Set aside.

Thinly shred brussels sprouts (the easiest way is to use a mandoline) and chiffonade the kale leaves by destemming them, layering them on top of one another and then rolling them up into a long tube. Cut across tube to create thin strips of kale.

To assemble salad --- toss brussels sprouts and kale with hazelnuts, pomegranate seeds and parmesan. Drizzle dressing on top and then gently toss again to coat evenly in dressing.

Serves 6 as a side.

Winter Fruit Salad

It’s a shame that fruit salads pretty much go by the wayside the moment it gets colder than 60 degrees outside. I guess it’s just one of those lovely, light, refreshing type things that makes hot summer days that much more bearable. Summer is fruit salad’s time to shine.

However, some of my favorite fruits come into season once the mercury drops below 50 up here. I’ve always had an affinity for tart and puckering fruits and citrus. I was shocked to learn that the majority of people I’ve met in my adult life did not know what a grapefruit spoon was. I was even more floored and slightly disgusted by the people who did know what a grapefruit spoon was but admitted to sprinkling the fruit with sugar first. One might say it defeats the purpose?

After Thanksgiving sins, I really felt like a fresh clean slate and all the newly seasonal fruits were calling my name, this is how this salad was born. Lightly sweet, but at times tart, totally refreshing, and the pomegranate seeds give a nice crunch. The acid from the dressing and the grapefruit also soften the apple slices as the salad sits. I think that the salad looks really pretty with all the slices and segments, but to make for an easier spoonful, giving the apples and grapefruit a cut down in size might make things more bite friendly.

If you wanna be “that person” at the holiday party, by all means, this is perfect. It’s so darn pretty and it would be a nice break from the general heaviness of holiday party eats, if, of course, someone decides to take the chance. You know what I mean by “that” person, right? The person who brings fruit salad to what is essentially a calorie-carb free for all. Those events are usually a “give me all the cookies, cream sauce, and butter you have” type of situation. I can’t guarantee that this beautiful thing won’t be largely ignored among the other goodies on the dessert table. Call it a palate cleanser if you will. Regardless, it’s even better the next day, so it’s a great make ahead dish. Oh! And wouldn’t this be a nice combo in a winter sangria?  

I do plan on bringing this to a holiday shindig this weekend! So I will be that person (I’ll let ya know how it goes!) But by that person, I mean that I will also be bringing a cake that has nearly two sticks of butter and enough sugar in it to kill a small pony. It’s all about balance people.

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Winter Fruit Salad

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon honey

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

4 clementines, peeled and segmented

1 grapefruit, peeled and segmented (Video on segmenting citrus! So helpful!)

1 apple, cored and thinly sliced

1 pomegranate’s worth seeds

In a small bowl whisk together lemon juice and honey.

Add all fruit to a large bowl and pour the lemon-honey dressing over the fruit. Gently mix to combine, careful not to break up the fragile grapefruit segments. Serve cold and if there is time, let it sit before serving to meld and get juicy!

**Note on this since I've made it a few more times since originally posting: there's no real need for the dressing. It does add a layer of flavor for sure, but let's just say you're out of lemons or don't have honey or are watching for added sweeteners -- just leave it out. The grapefruit provides a nice base layer of juice. Also I've been subbing in orange segments for the clementines and I haven't looked back. ---M

Cauliflower Tabbouleh

And so I declare this Mediterranean week here in the sizzle & sass kitchen!

It hit me like a ton of bricks about three weeks ago. I could think of nothing else but warm pita, falafels, tabbouleh, and hummus for straight up days. Conveniently this craving struck during the high holidays, meaning, that the Mediterranean place near my job was closed in observance several times.

It got me thinking though as I was finally inhaling still hot from the fryer falafels one day that hmm, I wonder if I could paleo-fy these? Oh and maybe hummus!….AND MAYBE TABBOULEH!

Can we just straight talk for a second? I just want to say that I use paleo as a framework for how I eat day to day. I am not so strict about eating that way 100% of the time. One of the best parts for me has been expanding how I think about food and the way it can be used. It helps me get creative! I'm actually working on re-writing my about me to reflect these thoughts. The "buzzwords" in there have always killed me a little bit. So, anyways, while I am pretty positive some chickpeas once in a while ain’t gonna kill me, having the revelation (which I’m sure is not so original) that cauliflower riced to couscous size could work as chickpeas. I mean come on! I had to try it.

So for the people that do follow strict paleo for whatever reasons and are missing dearly those crunchy, herby, lovely balls of chickpeas, and smooth yummy hummus and refreshingly delicious tabbouleh…I did my best to find applicable substitutions, and I have filed these recipes under SUCCESS.

Today I give you tabbouleh! Hummus and falafels will be posted later this week.

One note about this tabbouleh. Mine looks a teensy bit on the brown side.

You see, what had happened was…

Listen, I don’t think you will have half as many things going on in your oven as I did the day I made this. So you probably won’t be switching pans around to different places in oven and you probably won’t stupidly place your roasting riced cauliflower on the very bottom of the oven and then shut the door and then discover it about five minutes too late when you go to switch things around again.

You will roast this until it's just perfectly tender and just a smidgen toasty on the edges.

Got it? Great.

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Cauliflower Tabbouleh

2 cups of cauliflower, riced in a food processor (about the size of couscous)

1 cup of diced tomatoes

½ cup of parsley, finely chopped

½ cup of mint, finely chopped

approximately ¼ cup of olive oil

juice of 1 lemon

salt and pepper to taste

Heat oven to 350 degrees

Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and spread your riced cauliflower on the pan.

Roast in oven until tender and slightly toasty on the edges, approximately 15 to 20 minutes.

Place in bowl and let cool to room temperature.

Once cooled, add the tomatoes and herbs to the bowl and then dress with olive oil and lemon juice and add seasoning, stir to combine all ingredients. Adjust seasoning as needed.

Tabbouleh is one of the those feel it out type of salads. My mother’s ratio is more bulgar wheat to herbs and then she sorta continues to taste it and add in the oil, lemon, and salt and pepper until it tastes right. This is essentially her recipe with the bulgar switched out for cauliflower.

Slightly Spicy Slaw

So I went to Whole Foods one day after the green market for cat food although I was super hungry and me and grocery shopping while hungry never ends in a good way. Believe me, I could’ve made it home for food. Really. But I snuck past the food bar and of course lost my resolve. Now, mistake? Or kismet? I’ve decided on definitely meant to be because I stumbled across something that I’ve probably thought about once a day since. It was called “Firecracker Slaw.” If there’s one thing I adore in life, it’s slaw. I’m that gross person who always eats the tiny cup of half warm coleslaw sent along with that pickle at the diner. As of recently I’ve also started to gravitate towards more vinegar-based dressings and have discovered a whole new world of slaw making.

This Firecracker Slaw was the stuff of my dreams. Not sure if anybody’s noticing a pattern going on, but I like things spicy around here. It was beautifully colored - the red of the cabbage, there were red, yellow and orange bell peppers thrown in, and there they were, slivers of jalapeno. My recreation does not taste exactly like the wholefoods version, but it’s close and it’s GOOD.

Hey, little side note, you’ll notice there’s something called kohlrabi in this. Kohlrabi? Kohlrabi anyone? I received three kohlrabi in my farmshare and was like….what the f….are these?? Since learning more about them, they’ve all gone into slaws and I couldn’t of been more pleased. If you don’t have any kohlrabi lying around or haven’t a clue what it even is (been there girl) just sub in a ½ head of green cabbage instead. Kohlrabi are in the same family as cabbage and broccoli.

Hmmm…..broccoli slaw….

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Slightly Spicy Slaw

inspired by Whole Foods’ “Firecracker Slaw”

Ingredients:

Slaw

½ head of red cabbage, cored and sliced into long thin strips

1 bell pepper, orange, yellow, or red for color, sliced into long thin strips

½ cucumber, sliced into matchsticks

½ red onion, sliced thinly

1 kohlrabi, peeled and shredded

3 carrots, shredded

1 jalapeno pepper, de-ribbed and de-seeded (or leave in for more heat), sliced into super thin matchsticks

Dressing

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 ½ tablespoons Red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon dijon mustard

2 teaspoons honey

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Take all your prepped vegetables and toss them together in a large bowl.

Combine dressing ingredients together in a small bowl and then pour over your slaw. Toss slaw again to distribute dressing.

You can eat it right away, but I always find slaw better when it’s sat a bit and had time to meld it’s flavors and wilt a little.

Welcome! And a Red Russian Kale Strawberry Salad

Welcome to Sizzle & Sass! 

Coming to you from a tiny NYC kitchen where the challenge is simple. Cook and bake as seasonally, as locally, and as organically as possible in a typically small city kitchen with a grand total of two and a half feet of counter space. At least my fridge and oven are life size. Thank you, Queens.

Consider this challenge accepted, I’m beyond excited to conquer.

So, let’s start this thing off right, with a strawberry kale salad. Specifically, “Red Russian” Kale (the magenta veins just shouted to me at the farmer’s market - “I wanna meet some strawberries!”) I’d like to think it’s terribly seasonal and quite pretty in pink. I also threw some last of the season asparagus in there. Grab it up before it’s too late and try it fresh! It’s so crunchy and sweet! And then I dressed it all up in a jalapeno vinaigrette. If that ain’t sassy, I don’t know what is. 

If you do dairy, a salty feta or a tangy goat cheese would be lovely here. I had none on hand, but it also wasn’t missed. Next time, I will definitely throw in some sunflower seeds if I have them for added crunch - I love me a crunchy salad.

It’s only slightly spicy, but I cut out the rib and seeds, next time I might leave some in there to kick it up a notch. I was also thinking it might be nice to make the dressing a day ahead and let the pepper really steep into the liquid.

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Red Russian Kale Strawberry Salad with Jalapeno Vinaigrette

Salad Ingredients

1 bunch Red Russian Kale

4 to 5 asparagus spears

½ of a red onion, thinly sliced

½ cup of fresh strawberries, sliced

optional:

handful of sunflower seeds

a bit of feta or goat cheese 

Vinaigrette Ingredients

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

2 teaspoons dijon mustard

2 teaspoons maple syrup

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 jalapeno, finely minced

salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Prepare your vinaigrette first, perhaps even a day in advance

The Lazy Way (how I did it):

Whisk together the oil and vinegar, then add in the mustard, syrup, salt and pepper and jalapeno and whisk again until combined.

The Proper Way:

Whisk together vinegar, mustard, syrup, salt and pepper then slowly drizzle olive oil in while whisking until dressing has emulsified. Stir in the minced jalapeno.

Set aside.

Prep your washed kale by removing the stems. Stack the leaves on top of each other one by one. Then roll them up tightly into a tube shape, then cut across to create very delicate thin strips of kale. This is called a chiffonade! Easy to toss, easy to eat!

Line up two asparagus at a time and slice at a slight diagonal, to create thin oval discs.

Throw the kale, asparagus, and red onion into a large bowl and toss a bit to incorporate. Pour over the dressing and then add the sliced strawberries. Gently fold the strawberries in and distribute the dressing evenly.

Serves 4